Pittsburgh’s Ethics Hearing Board, created after a City Council president was convicted of extortion, hasn’t met in nearly a decade and couldn’t investigate a complaint even if it received one. The five-member panel, reluctantly created by the administration of then-Mayor Sophie Masloff, was supposed to be a forum for residents who suspect improprieties by elected officials or city employees. Mayor Tom Murphy, who appoints board members, and City Council members, who may nominate them, have done little to keep its chairs full. Today, there are only two members — one member shy of the minimum needed to meet. Nor has there been a blizzard of complaints looking for a place to land — the city gets only a couple a year. The ethics board itself received only one complaint, in 1994, before going dormant. If someone lodges a complaint, the city solicitor and Office of Municipal Investigations handle it. “They could file a complaint with me or the (city solicitor’s) department,” said Tom Solomich, the ethics board chairman and Downtown lawyer appointed to the non-paying job in 1991 and reappointed in ’94. “I don’t have a quorum, so I can’t do anything with it. I can’t have a meeting if I don’t have a quorum.” The solicitor’s department reviews complaints. If the office decides more investigation is needed, the complaint is forwarded to the appropriate city agency. Janet Berkowitz, co-administrator of the Kentucky Avenue School in Shadyside, is the board’s other member. Masloff appointed her in July 1993, and Murphy reappointed her three years later — and she has never had to go to a meeting. There haven’t been any. “I would love for something to happen,” said Berkowitz, who read the city code and attended an ethics seminar to prepare for the appointment. “Why doesn’t anything happen• There’s certainly things that must go on during elections. I just can’t believe nothing has happened that would violate the code,” she said. Craig Kwiecinski, the mayor’s spokesman, said the administration prefers to handle complaints internally. “The city utilizes the Office of Municipal Investigations as the agency responsible for investigating any violations within the city,” he said. OMI, run by the city law department, investigates allegations of misconduct by city employees, particularly complaints against police officers. Councilman Bob O’Connor said the ethics board should not only be reactivated, but given a stronger mandate. O’Connor, who nominated one of the board’s original members, could offer no reason why the mayor and council have not been more attentive to the board. “It’s out of sight, out of mind,” he said. The city board’s inactivity is in contrast to the newly formed Allegheny County ethics commission, which is in the process of formulating forms to register complaints and make financial disclosures. John Contino, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission, said it’s common for cities, counties and states to have ethics boards. Contino served as an adviser when Pittsburgh created its ethics board. But another expert said local ethics boards are not essential. As long as the solicitor’s office handles complaints, an outside board offers only an appearance of neutrality, said John Burkoff, an associate dean and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. “I don’t think it’s necessary,” Burkoff said. “It’s something that may be desirable depending on the situation. The only thing a board gives you that the solicitor’s office might not look like it’s giving is an appearance of greater neutrality.” Three of the five ethics board positions have been vacant since 1993, the year before Murphy took office. The terms of Solomich and Berkowitz expired in 1997 and ’98, respectively, but they remain members because no one was appointed to replace them. Other board members resigned. Even if the board were fully staffed, it wouldn’t be busy. Every year or so, the city receives a complaint that a public works employee is using city property for a private purpose or that a refuse worker is taking money for picking up unauthorized trash, city Solicitor Jacqueline Morrow wrote in response to e-mailed questions. From “time to time,” Morrow wrote, someone reports that a building inspector is accepting bribes to overlook a code violation. Theft is the most common criminal complaint, she wrote, and the city has investigated and fired employees for things such as stealing petty cash. “As a practical matter, the most typical complaint against a city employee that would give rise to an ethics charge is also a violation of other rules and gets investigated by (the Office of Municipal Investigations) and if sustained referred to the department for an appropriate response,” Morrow wrote. Masloff created the ethics board in 1990 at the urging of then-Councilman Dan Cohen, a year after then-council President Ben Woods was forced to resign after he was convicted of 17 counts of racketeering, income tax evasion, extortion and conspiracy. Woods extorted $48,000 from a city Housing Authority vendor and served three years in prison. He was released in June 1993. Cohen said it took him months of lobbying and concession-making to write the bill that won approval from Masloff and the City Council. The bill created the ethics board and includes a code of conduct that prohibits city employees from conflicts of interest or hiring family members. It also limits the amounts they may give in political contributions or receive in gifts. Masloff said Cohen “got very little support for it at the time. We humored him, gave in to him. It seemed to me that it was an exercise in futility.” Within a year, the ethics board had five members who met monthly and spent about six months writing an ethics handbook. After the paperback was published in March 1992, the board had little to do. At the December meeting that year, members approved a quarterly meeting schedule for 1993 before adjourning, according to minutes saved by Solomich. One of the board’s last meetings, in March 1993, lasted just a half-hour, and members approved an annual report to City Council. By the end of 1993, four of the five original members had resigned. Berkowitz was appointed that July. A lack of activity should not indicate the ethics board has been a failure, Cohen said. “It certainly has been helpful in guiding municipal employees when they have an issue where they’re not sure how to respond,” he said. “That was really the major purpose of the act.” Cohen said the ethics board could play an important role if it were reactivated. The board may hold public hearings, subpoena witnesses, take testimony and investigate charges. About that single complaint the ethics board received: A city Information Systems employee alleged in 1994 that he was laid off by the Murphy administration because of his association with the Masloff administration. The board never considered the complaint. The city solicitor’s office determined it was unfounded and dismissed it.

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